Vaiko refused entry to Malaysia over his support to LTTE

India’s MDMK General Secretary Vaiko was stopped from entering Malaysia on Friday on the grounds that he is a sympathizer of the now defunct, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Mumbai Mirror reported.

Vaiko, a vocal supporter of slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran, took a flight to Kuala Lumpur to attend the marriage of Penang deputy chief minister Prof P Ramasamy’s daughter. The reception is scheduled for Saturday, June 10.

However, Vaiko was detained by immigration officials at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. He was allotted a room in the airport. The authorities are making arrangements to deport Vaiko to India, a senior MDMK leader S.Duraisamy told Mirror.

He will be sent back to Chennai by a Malaysian Airlines flight, the MDMK (Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) said in a release

Vaiko was reportedly blacklisted from entering the country. But the Malaysian Embassy in Chennai reportedly cleared his visa last week.

The party is all set to launch protests against the detention, Duraisamy said.

When Vaiko was told that there were “several cases against him in Sri Lanka,” he denied it and told them that he was an Indian citizen and showed them his passport too.

“Still, the authorities did not accept it and made Vaiko sit in an enclosure in the immigration office. They took away his passport and told him that he should not step out of that place,” the release said.

The 73-year-old Vaiko recently went to jail in a sedition case slapped against him during the DMK regime in 2010. He was sent to Puzhal Central prison by a Metropolitan Magistrate Court after he expressed his unwillngeness to execute bail bond.

Lately the convenor of May 17 Movement, Thirumurugan Gandhi and leaders of few other outfits supporting the cause of Tamils in Sri Lanka were arrested in Chennai for organising a candle vigil to remember the Tamils who were killed in the ‘genocide’ against Tamils by the Sri Lankan government in its war against LTTE in 2009.

The draconian Goondas Act was slapped against Thirumurugan Gandhi and others. (Colombo Gazette